January 20-26, 2005
artpicks
Language Arts
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In his newest book and PBS pairing, Robert MacNeil becomes what '80s rock gods Wide Boy Awake once called a "slang teacher" — an educator on the happy accidents of new language. If his name sounds familiar, it should. The author behind Do You Speak American? (Nan A. Talese) is the ex-anchor of PBS's MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. Along with William Cran, MacNeil, a writer leading a double life as a linguist, traveled the Americas to paint a troubled but still cheerful (by book's end) portrait of an eroding language, one quickly being chipped at by the childlike need for speed that is IM and BlackBerry text messaging. While both authors have been down this road before, discussing the past and present of the language circa The Story of English, their Speak American book and PBS special has an urgent air of tragedy about it; as if there's something awful coming down the pike. Its most crucial reference point, one the authors insist will create diversity and tolerance in an age of texting uniformity, are regional dialects and the colloquial slang within them. While some linguistic experts (John Simon, for example) believe standards have been lowered to gutter speak, MacNeil and Cran make brilliant points as to how regionalism, urban and rural, can and must lift the American language beyond the rigidity of the queen's English into something representative of the modernist diaspora. From penthouse to pavement, from fishermen to pimps, MacNeil finds quality and equality with the new American.
Robert MacNeil, Thu., Jan. 20, 7 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341.
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